Only, do we call it “genocide” when the victim population is simply women? If not, why not?

OK. This post will be disturbing. Very disturbing. But it’s so important that it not be ignored. So, take a moment to adjust your headspace, and then read on.

The other day, I heard a joke. It was a pretty damn bad joke, actually, but most of the people in the room were drunk and, as sometimes happens when drink is involved, a number of them were participating in a sort of Tackier-Than-Thou contest. With that caveat, here’s the … “joke.”

Q. What’s the best part about raping a three-year-old?
A. Hearing the pelvis snap.

(My Gods, I can’t believe I just typed that.) Jokes like that… aren’t. They aren’t funny. Unlike the sort of joke that manages to indict the criminal they purport to be from the point of view of, this horrible joke is the sort that invites the listener to (nudge-nudge wink-wink) identify with the rapist. To chortle at his antics in the spirit of agreeing with him that it is indeed pleasant to violate children and break bones.

*shudder*

And the sad fact is, we live in a world with no room for jokes like that. There are people who aren’t joking when they say things like that. And there are places where being a female of any age is itself life-threatening.

Here is one of them.

I hope you can link to this speech by a Canadian named Stephen Lewis. Lewis’s foundation is dedicated to HIV/AIDS in Africa, but this particular speech is about the atrocities against women that continue to rage unchecked in the Democratic Republic of Congo, particularly in the eastern Congo.

In short, systematic and widespread rape, gang rape, mutilation, torture, instrumental rape, gang rape followed by vaginal shooting or stabbing, and so on, affecting many tens of thousands of women (if not hundreds of thousands). What is going on in the Congo is apparently worse than Darfur, has gone on for years longer than Darfur, and yet gets no international action, no international pressure, no intervention to protect the female human beings in that country.

I am not sure what the average American can do. Urge our senators and congresspeople to urge Bush and our UN ambassador to urge the UN to take action? For starters, at least we can increase visibility of the problem and hopefully get more people aware and motivated to act.

a shout-out from Orange of the Orange Tangerine blog (via.)

Please click the link and read Lewis’s speech in full. I’ll wait.

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What do we do? What can we do? Who do we yell at? Who do we write to? I know saying “Write your congress-critters” gets old, but it’s the most direct thing that those of us in the U.S. can do. People everywhere: tell the leaders, representatives, lawmakers, & etc. of your nation that this is important.

I post Orange’s words here in hopes of being a small link in the chain that brings awareness to those people who can do more than that. And even if that doesn’t happen, you are potentially more people with voices, pens, computers, voices at your disposal. Use them. Make some noise. At the very least, support Women for Women International, who are providing what relief they can to the Congolese women undergoing this living nightmare, as well as women survivors of war worldwide. Also, HEAL Africa is doing good work in the area. Support these organizations, or any others you feel will use your donations as to make a difference.

And pass the word along. This has been going on far too long for the world not to know.

Spreading the word: what else is a blog for?